


Where Your Treasure Is

by madamebadger



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Body Worship, Bondage, F/F, Gentle BDSM, Light Bondage, Trust, soft domme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 22:41:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8031754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamebadger/pseuds/madamebadger
Summary: Cassandra makes a surprising request of Josephine. Or perhaps not so surprising.





	Where Your Treasure Is

**Author's Note:**

> Very, _very_ soft bondage ahoy. Or: in which Cassandra wants to feel safe giving in and trusting someone else.

It is a thing that Josephine has learned to interpret very clearly: the particular stillness and silence that overcomes Cassandra when she has something to say and cannot find the words to say it. Of course, it would not be unusual for Cassandra to be still and quiet in this position, naked and entangled in bed as they are, with Cassandra’s cheek resting on her breast—but this particular stillness is something she has come to recognize.

She says nothing; her instinct as a diplomat is to attempt to help someone express themselves, and to fill awkward silences as gracefully as possible, but Cassandra is frequently thrown off by the former and finds the latter irritating. So she strokes the back of Cassandra’s neck, the curve of her ear, and says nothing, and waits.

Sure enough, after a time, Cassandra says, “I have been meaning to ask, if….” She pauses, flounders, and then gives a little shiver as if to shake off the thought, almost like the tremor in a horse’s flank when it seeks to dislodge a fly.

So Josephine says, “Tell me.”

“I have been meaning to ask, if—whether—” and then, very fast, “—if—that is to say, there is something I would like to try. With you. In bed.”

That is something of a surprise. Cassandra is a magnificent lover, generous and passionate and tender, but not particularly adventurous. She has always seemed perfectly content to kiss and be kissed, touch and be touched, be brought to orgasm with fingers or lips (and return the favor with flattering enthusiasm), but thus far anything more complex than that has been rare, and only at Josephine’s suggestion. The idea that Cassandra has a preference that she would bring up in advance sends a quiet thrill of excitement through Josephine. Still, Cassandra sounds so hesitant that she considers it prudent to keep her tone level as she says, “Yes?”

“If you don’t want to try it,” Cassandra says, “I don’t want you to feel pressured, or awkward, or—”

It would be the easiest thing in the world to reassure Cassandra that anything she suggests will be all right with Josephine—easy and most likely also safe, for Josephine cannot think of anything that Cassandra is likely to suggest that she would refuse. But there are some things that Josephine would, conceivably, not be willing to agree to, and Cassandra would never want to be consoled with a facile lie. So Josephine lets her fingertips drift to stroke Cassandra’s eyebrow, tracing down to her temple and then her cheek, a tender touch. “Even if it is something I would not choose to do,” she says, “I will not judge you for asking.”

Cassandra nods, and takes a little breath as if to summon her courage. “I would like it… very much… if you would tie me. Bind my hands. I—” And then she stumbles to a stop, the flush crawling up her cheeks.

(Beneath her weight, on the bed, Josephine is in a perfect position to feel the tiny, almost-imperceptible shudder of excitement that trembles at the small of Cassandra’s back.)

Josephine finds herself having two reactions, strongly and simultaneously. The first is surprise at how mild that suggestion is; she has never indulged in the practice of bondage herself, but in Orlais such things are hardly even considered outré. After all that build-up she had been expecting something quite a lot more dramatic, although she knows better than to say so to Cassandra. The second reaction that she has is also surprise, but of quite a different type. She never would have expected such of Cassandra; she suspects few others would either. Cassandra is, by position and nature, a commanding presence, even a dominant one, and even more so—even more so, Josephine knows that she hates even the _thought_ of her own helplessness, and hates even more being constrained or caged in any way.

She knows better, though, than to express surprise at that either. Instead she runs her fingers softly through Cassandra’s hair. “I can do that,” she says. “If you would like it.”

“Yes,” Cassandra says, and then finally she lifts her head, no longer hiding her expression but meeting Josephine’s eyes. The look there is at once intense and vulnerable, and Josephine feels, again, the little shiver of pleased excitement that ripples deep into her belly. “Yes, I would. With you. Very much.”

“But not now,” Josephine says. 

“No,” Cassandra says. “Later.” And then she smiles, and lets her head drop again to rest on Josephine’s chest.

* * *

"You have done this before?" Josephine says. They are discussing it, of course, fully clothed and before any real preparations are made—well, 'of course' to Josephine, though Cassandra seems shy when it comes to discussing such things aloud, in words. Josephine acquiesces to Cassandra's preference for wordless affection at other times, but not this time: she knows enough of such things to know that there are elements that must be discussed.

"Yes," Cassandra says. "With Galyan." Her ears redden, the telltale first sign of her embarrassment. "How foolish. Of course with Galyan. You know there has not been... anyone else."

Josephine knows. Cassandra was no blushing virgin, the first time in her bed. She was flatteringly eager in her desires, and not shy about them, either; her passions run hot in all things, and this is no exception. But that first time Josephine was surprised, perhaps unfairly, at her inexperience. One heard stories about the companionship of warriors, of hot blood that showed itself in many ways. That her only prior partner was a man with whom she had by necessity rarely ever been in the same city, and that she has less experience than Josephine (who was a decade her younger and required for reasons of professional propriety and family reputation to be immaculately discreet in her affairs)—those things did come as a surprise.

"But yes," Cassandra continues, leaning forward until her elbows rest on her knees, "with Galyan," and then she falters a little. Then she continues, the words coming out in a rush, as if she is hastening into battle before her nerve fails her: "It was an accident, the first time, an accident and I was still very young—we were in bed together and my hands became tangled in the bedclothes, and at first I—panicked, I suppose; in my life to that point having my hands restrained had never been anything but a very bad thing, in many cases perhaps even a deadly bad thing. But I realized...." Her eyelashes lower; she looks now not at Josephine but at some scene long since past, some scene from her youth. "I realized that Galyan would not hurt me, nor allow me to come to harm, that I did not need to be ready always to fight, that I could—that—” She opens her eyes again, those beautiful wood-grain eyes, brown and red and gold; her expression implores Josephine to understand, and Josephine feels a quiver low inside her at that silent entreaty.

"Trust," she says, and Cassandra nods.

"Yes," Cassandra says. "Trust. Trust, and... safety. That's why we did it again later, and deliberately, for that—that feeling. Peace, knowing that I do not always need to fight, that sometimes I can be...." Words fail her again; she opens a hand, more eloquent in her wordless gesture than in her fumbling words.

Josephine slips her hand into Cassandra's. "Yes," she says.

* * *

Josephine makes Leliana promise three times never to tease or twit Cassandra about this, before she asks her help. (She is familiar with such things, but knowing that they are commonly practiced is very different than knowing where and how to acquire the necessary supplies. Not to mention that were word to get out that the Inquisition's spymaster was obtaining buckles and straps, it would send a very different message than learning that its ambassador was collecting them.)

Leliana's response is all amusement, but beneath that, a pleasure in being able to help. "I should have guessed that you two were at about the right place in your relationship to begin to experiment," she says. "And I will confess to having daydreamed about binding and gagging Cassandra from time to time—although in very different contexts."

"No gags," Josephine says. (Cassandra was very clear on that point, and also on her lack of desire for, as she put it, "whips or spanking or anything of that nature." Cassandra is well-acquainted with physical pain, and generally does not find it erotic in the slightest, which, Josephine supposes, makes sense.) And then, "How do you know it will be Cassandra bound, and not me?"

Leliana gives her a knowing look. "It could go either way in the long run, but at the first? It would always be Cassandra. I know you both well, and I know these things."

Josephine huffs a breath, but leaves the matter in Leliana's clearly-capable hands.

What Leliana comes up with, at the end, are a set of leather straps: supple brown leather, two inches wide and thick enough that even Cassandra's prodigious physical strength would not be able to budge them, lined on the inside with soft fabric.

"They are..." Josephine begins, and then hesitates, and says, "...perhaps a bit intimidating?"

"Wider is better than narrow. Satin cords and silk scarves look lovely, and they seem soft, but they can cut into the flesh, especially if tied inexpertly. A good wide strap will hold her securely with no pain. And the lining, see? It won't chafe her even if she pulls against it. No pain, you said."

Josephine chuckles. "You have thought of everything."

"What are friends for?"

* * *

That night, Josephine arranges for a private supper for herself and Cassandra. (This is no small feat; her duties make her someone in high demand at the hour of the evening meal, but she manages it.) The food is light, and there is no wine—instead Josephine arranges for a pitcher of water in which has been strewn some of the last of the late-summer berries. In Antiva, there would have been slices of orange and of lemon, but she will make do as she can.

Cassandra does not say much, attending herself to the slices of cold roast venison and the frissee in wine vinegar dressing. Josephine shares a few anecdotes—including that the frissee is from the Skyhold gardens, fresh-picked that morning and got from the kitchen mistress with no small amount of wheedling—but while Cassandra smiles at the anecdotes, and comments from time to time, she allows Josephine to lead the conversation. Josephine fancies she can see the pulse thrumming in Cassandra’s throat.

 _Trust_ , she thinks. _Trust is a hard thing_. 

When the meal is complete and the dishes cleared away, it is Cassandra who comes first to her, kissing her with lips still sweet from the pear sorbet that finished the meal. Josephine twines her arms around Cassandra’s neck and kisses her back, soft and open-mouthed, an invitation and a promise. _You are safe here. You can trust me without fear. I am yours, mi tesoro, my love._

How strange, that it is Cassandra who wants these assurances, these gentlenesses—Cassandra, who is strong enough to bear up under dragon’s fire, who takes each blow the world throws at her and keeps moving forward. Cassandra the stalwart, Cassandra the unyielding; she has heard what the recruits say, that the very mountain will fall before Seeker Pentaghast does.

Or… perhaps it is not strange at all. She can feel the soft insistent touch of Cassandra’s tongue, the brush of eyelashes that flicker across her cheeks as Cassandra blinks (she is as likely to kiss with eyes open as not, Josephine has learned), the way Cassandra’s hands settle on her waist.

Josephine pulls back and begins to undress Cassandra, gently. Cassandra has already shed her armor, which is a relief; Josephine knows by now how to remove it, but it is always a nuisance, and one prone to leaving her with pinched fingertips. She slides her fingertips up Cassandra’s sides, pushing her tunic up and off and relishing the little shiver she feels, the way Cassandra’s eyelids flicker down, then up to look at her. Cassandra makes a little gesture with her hands as if she wants to help, but in the end, she doesn’t, and Josephine thrills at that, at being given permission—nay, encouragement—to take the lead. Cassandra’s body is strong, broad with muscle and seamed with scars. As she is not coming from the battlefield or the exercise yard, she wears no breast-band. Her warm round breasts fill Josephine’s hands, and she can feel nipples hardening against her palms, though she does not tease them, not yet. She will pay them proper attention, but later. 

Cassandra’s head has fallen back, eyes shut and lips parted. Josephine slides her hands lower, down over the muscular solidity of Cassandra’s waist to the generous curve of her hip, and then to the belt and tie that keep her trousers fastened. She tugs both open and urges Cassandra’s trousers down and off. (She was amused, the first time they lay together, at the revelation that the rumors about Cassandra’s underwear—or lack thereof—were in fact true.)

She kneels, now, at Cassandra’s feet, and looks up to meet her gaze. It might at first seem a subservient position, but it is not, and they both know the truth of that. Cassandra looks at her with an aching tenderness and an unspoken _want_ , and Josephine thinks, _Yes_.

She rises and undresses herself—not as arduous or lengthy a process as it often is; though she does not go without undergarments as Cassandra does, the gowns she wears in the privacy of her own chambers are not as layered and structured as the ones she wears in public, and it is easy enough to slide milky green satin from her shoulders to the floor, leaving her in a corselet and stockings. Cassandra makes the same brief gesture, as if to help, and this time, Josephine says, “Sit down on the bed, love.”

Cassandra does, stepping back two paces and sitting. She is lovely always, but when nude she reminds Josephine of the statues one found in byways and ruins, of gods old and forgotten. The broad shoulders, the muscular thighs, the firm lines of the biceps, the golden sheen of the skin even broken by scars both pink and silver—the gaze, fearless and direct. But no statue, no god, would part its lips just so, wanting and unashamed of wanting.

Josephine is growing aroused, herself, though they have barely touched, a slick warmth that grows between her legs and makes her wish to press her thighs together. She does not. She unlaces the corselet and slips it off with a pleased sigh, then kneels to slide off her stockings, carefully, one foot at a time. She is aware of Cassandra’s gaze on her. She does not rush.

When she is done, she comes to Cassandra, slips onto her lap, and kisses her, full and soft on the mouth. Cassandra kisses back with a warmth and an urgency that is all delight, hands settling on Josephine’s hips to steady her as Josephine touches Cassandra’s throat, her cheekbones, slides fingertips into her hair. She knows that her arousal will be obvious to Cassandra, and does not mind it—wants it, in fact, wants Cassandra to feel, to know, to be assured by it. When the kiss breaks with both of them panting, Josephine says, “Lie back on the bed, my darling.”

Cassandra does. 

Oh, she is a sight, stretched out on the coverlet, watching Josephine from under her lashes. Josephine follows her up the bed, with a detour to pull a small box from under the bed and unlock it.

She does not miss the way Cassandra’s eyes widen, her pupils huge and dark, at the sight of the leather straps. Josephine comes to her again, kisses her: her lips, her cheekbones, her eyelashes. Her ear, and there she whispers, “You still want this?”

“Yes,” Cassandra breathes.

“And you will tell me if you change your mind?”

“Yes.”

Josephine kisses her again, light and almost chaste for all that they lie naked along the lengths of their bodies. She takes Cassandra’s hands in her own, running her pen-callused fingertips along Cassandra’s long fingers, feeling the rough spots there, the scars, the marks. The place where her littlest finger is bent from an old break that never quite set right. She kisses the palm of one hand and then the other, then draws them both out in front of her so that she can run her hands up Cassandra’s wrists: the scar that (Cassandra once admitted) came not from warfare but from falling out of a tree as a child, and then the long lines of her forearms, not as obviously muscled as her biceps or shoulders but still powerful, prone to the tension that comes from spending days with hands gripped around a sword or a shield—or gripped from frustration. She sooths that skin with her fingertips, feeling the difference between the tender underside and the upper part, dusted with fine dark hair. She feels Cassandra shudder under her touch, and smiles, and reaches for the straps.

It is easy enough to wind them around, the dark leather standing out against the gold of Cassandra’s skin, into a secure figure that would hold her as tight as an embrace. She sees Cassandra’s eyes close, her lips thin, her fingers clench for a moment—but Cassandra does not say ‘stop’ and so Josephine does not stop, not until broad bands of leather wrap Cassandra’s upper arms in an alternating pattern, so that shining deep-brown leather stripes warm bare skin. She buckles it tight, to hold; and checks that the buckle will not bite into Cassandra’s flesh, no matter how she might tug at it. Then she coaxes Cassandra’s hands up over her head, to bind her to the headboard.

When it is done, she sits back, and looks. And yes, there, yes: Cassandra stretched on the coverlet, bare, trembling just a little (and not from cold, Josephine knows, because she built up the fire until it was warm enough for her to bear the temperature easily—and Cassandra is much more accustomed to chill than she is). Cassandra, bare, trembling, the powerful muscles of her shoulders and biceps trembling, her lip trembling and her eyes shut but barely, that soft shiver of eyelids over her eyes.

All at once Cassandra tenses, as if fighting the bonds, and every muscle stands out: rippling across her belly, tightening through her shoulders, biceps cut clear and sharp, head thrown back so that the cords of her neck can be seen so clear, Cassandra, all power, putting herself against the bindings—

—and then she falls back to the bed. 

Her body loosens, softens, turns to water. Her eyes close, softly closed, soft dark fur of eyelashes on cheekbones—and the rest of her body shivers to looseness, as if it’s melted.

As if every tight spot of her body has dissolved.

Josephine touches her lightly, on the side first, on the belly. Cassandra doesn’t flinch or tense, but she smiles at the first soft slip of fingers across her stomach.

 _Submission_ , Josephine thinks. And then, her fingertips playing along the tender skin of Cassandra’s hipbone: _no, surrender. Trust._

__

_Safety_.

She is soft, tender under Josephine’s hands. Malleable. Willing. When Josephine caresses her cheekbone, her eyes open easily with a wild-moon, bonfire brightness. If it discomforts her at all to have her hands bound and tied above her head, she shows it not at all. Her eyes are soft and open, and her breath falls into a sweet rhythm that is slower than her quick-mark waking breathing.

Josephine cups her breasts, cradles them. Cassandra’s skin is not as dark as her own; even when she has spent weeks marching under the sun without so much as a sunshade, she is more golden than brown, and here, where the sun does not often touch, her skin is like milky amber, with the same softly glowing quality as that fine stone but infinitely softer. Cassandra shivers under her touch and wets her lips, but says nothing, does not move, continues simply to watch with warm eyes. Josephine strokes her breasts, slow and smooth, fingers gliding over the fine skin there, catching on the mark of a scar that bisects her from one shoulder to the bottom of her opposite ribcage, long-since healed to silver. She lowers her head to press her lips to one hard brown nipple and then the other. Cassandra makes a little sound at the back of her throat, not a cry, not even quite a whimper, and Josephine hides a smile in the valley between her breasts.

She strokes lower, over the curve of her muscular waist. There are scars there, dramatic ones, as from the goring horns of boars or worse—in normal times she has avoided them, but now she takes Cassandra as her beloved territory—territory to be treated gently, yes, but that is hers to discover. It is one scar, her fingers discover, that tore into two, rather than two separate scars.

She lowers her head, kisses the warm dip of Cassandra’s navel. “Mi tesoro,” she says, and for the first time Cassandra—breathing in a deep bliss—catches her breath. _You are safe here_ , she thinks, _my love, you are safe in my hands, always, you are safe_ —but she cannot deny that beneath that, in her hearts and veins, beats something more primal: _you are mine, my love, you are here and you are mine, my warrior, strong everywhere but helpless beneath my hands, helpless beneath my touch and my whim._

__

_And my love_.

(The image comes to her, all at once—another practice, said to be Antivan though she is not sure it actually hails from her homeland and is not simply called that in Orlais due to a tendency to attribute certain sexual practices to their neighbors to the North. It is a practice of binding a lover with ropes, to constrain their body all over, to make them a living work of art—bound and helpless, appreciated and adored. She can see, in her mind’s eye, Cassandra’s golden skin and potent muscles banded with the lines of silk rope, Cassandra, strong as she is, shaped and formed under Josephine’s hand. It is not a practice that spoke to her before this, but now, very suddenly, she can understand its appeal.

Not now. But she saves the thought, for later.)

Cassandra watches her still, her gaze warm and hazy, dazed—and more relaxed than Josephine has seen her in a very long while; quite possibly more relaxed than Josephine has ever seen her save during post-coital moments. The quiescence of her body might be worrying—except that where she lies between Cassandra’s legs, her mouth exploring the muscled expanse of Cassandra’s belly, nibbling lightly at the juts of her hipbones, she is well aware of the scent of Cassandra’s arousal. Cassandra _wants_ , and the undeniable knowledge of that wants sends a corresponding shimmer of heat through Josephine; Cassandra the stone dropped in the center of a well, and Josephine’s body all rippling water in response.

She had thought to continue her appreciation of Cassandra’s body down those powerful muscled thighs, the elegant curves of her calves, the bones of her ankles and her feet (Cassandra has always been a little shy of the appearance of her feet, some toes broken and allowed to heal without being properly set, and callused and marked as they are by decades of arduous travel). But now, Josephine finds that she has no patience for such things, not in truth. Her own body is hot and thrumming, swimming with the arousal of touching Cassandra so intimately and for so long, of breathing in Cassandra’s own longing—and yes, too, the arousal of having such a powerful woman willingly soft and helpless beneath her hands. 

She shifts back, kneeling now between Cassandra’s calves, and lays her hands on Cassandra’s muscled thighs. To her delight, Cassandra relaxes further, her legs rolling further apart, her hips opening to allow Josephine in—to allow Josephine in as much as she chooses. And as her thighs part, Josephine can see the glimmer of wetness on the skin high on her inner thighs, that skin even more tender than the skin of her breasts, thin and vulnerable as Cassandra is never elsewhere vulnerable, vulnerable to _her_ , by Cassandra’s own choice, and to no one else.

It is awe as much as lust that bows Josephine as she reclines between Cassandra’s opened legs, ready to please and be pleased. She slides her hands up further, to part Cassandra with her fingers, feeling the soft prickle of hair on her fingertips. Cassandra’s body hair has always enthralled her: light on the tops of her arms and legs, thick beneath her arms and between her legs, and soft in the way of someone who has never shaved it. In Orlais, fashions for body hair—for men and women both—shift as quick as the tides, but was no surprise when she discovered that Cassandra ignored those trends completely.

Cassandra is open, now, open with the willingness of her legs drawn apart, her thighs wide; open with Josephine’s fingers parting her. Josephine looks up, up the beloved territory of her body: the fluttering of her belly as she pants, the soft way her unbound breasts move with each tremor, the sculptured lines of her shoulders and biceps where her arms arch above her head, held secure with bands of leather. Cassandra’s eyes have closed and her breaths now, though deep, are far from steady; she bites her lower lip and that small gesture floods heat through Josephine as sure as a touch. Then she looks down, at Cassandra’s sex, open to her now.

Poets compare a woman’s sex to a flower, or a shell, or a fruit. Josephine is no poet (and, if truth be told, does not have a great deal of patience for poetry in general, though when the time is right she is pleased to indulge Cassandra with almost endless readings of the love poetry that she prefers). To her, Cassandra’s body is a thing of inimitable beauty, difficult to describe—but not to appreciate. 

She lowers her mouth to the soft folds around Cassandra’s entrance in a touch as gentle as a kiss—a gentleness that grows into something as passionate, as searching, as a kiss. Cassandra’s head rolls back (Josephine can see this only dimly, unwilling as she is to raise her head) and she utters the first word she has spoken since she was bound: “ _Josephine_.”

Josephine persists, pulling away just a little to lap at Cassandra’s folds, at the arousal that pools there. Those same poets would refer to it as _honey_ or perhaps _dew_ , and it is nothing like either thing, but it is wholly Cassandra and Josephine relishes it, glories in it. Her face will be wet. She is glad of that, too. Cassandra has surrendered utterly beneath her, and Josephine marks herself with the evidence of Cassandra’s joy in it.

She follows the lines of Cassandra’s sex upward, to her apex, and brushes a feather-light kiss against it. Cassandra arches and cries out, wordless and sweet. Josephine persists, soft touches alternating with firm ones; one arm is occupied with keeping her propped on one elbow, but the other slides gently up and down Cassandra’s thigh, feeling the tension there. A tension not of trying to close herself or pull away, but quite the opposite—a tension of trying to open herself, offer herself, more and more and more, and for a moment Josephine thinks of binding her legs as well. Not to restrain her but to give her the freedom of not having to make even this small effort. (The image fills her mind, again, of Cassandra’s beautiful statue of a body, cradled completely in ropes, relaxing into the binding weight of them.)

Cassandra’s back arches; she cries out again. Josephine does not stop, does not stop as Cassandra wails, as her heels dig into the bed, as she holds herself higher and higher as if seeking somehow to go deeper into Josephine, into the pleasure she is being given. Her closed eyes open.

At the moment of her orgasm, Josephine is looking into her eyes, their bonfire brilliance almost entirely eclipsed by the darkness at the center, a soft warm darkness that seems ready to overwhelm them both.

Then Cassandra falls back to the bed, her breath making broken noises in her chest as she recovers. Josephine tends to her through the aftermath, her tongue gentle as it explores, her hands stroking strong legs and tendon-corded hips until Cassandra ceases quaking and lies still. Then she sits up, wiping her mouth on her hand, and crawls up the bed beside Cassandra. Cassandra lies as limp as a bow unstrung, as soft and rumpled and warm as a fur before the fire. Josephine kisses her parted lips, and it takes a moment for Cassandra to respond—and then she does, and her kiss is pure sweetness and almost chaste for all that they are both bare and the evidence of Cassandra’s climax is there on Josephine’s lips.

Josephine unbinds her then, slow and careful. Leliana was right: the straps were perfect. They leave nothing more than faint pink indentations on the golden flesh of Cassandra’s forearms—marks less dramatic even than the ones left on Josephine’s torso after a day of wearing a corset. Still, she kisses each mark as she unbinds Cassandra’s hands, and kisses Cassandra’s knuckles, and then lies down next to her. There is no need to pull up the blankets; the fire still burns high to keep their bare bodies warm.

Cassandra curls wordlessly toward her, and Josephine wraps arms around her and holds her, kisses the crown of her head, strokes her back. There is a look of such peace and sweetness on her face that Josephine does not want to risk breaking this spell with so much as a word.

In time, Cassandra drifts off to sleep, and—though she is not herself yet sleepy, and though there are always pressing things for her to do—she stays with her, and holds her, until she is ready to wake.

* * *

It is later. Cassandra, hungry again but unwilling to leave the room, is seated beside the hearth in a loose tunic and nothing else, toasting bread. The gold skin of her bare thighs turns luminous in the light from the coals. Josephine, who has simply thrown a robe over herself, sips a tisane and watches, noting the loose way Cassandra sits, her shoulders softly down and not up about her ears as they so often are. 

When Cassandra has finished and is crunching dry toast, Josephine slips down off the settee and settles on the floor next to her. She leans on Cassandra’s side (solid, as always, as the trunk of an oak) and smiles when Cassandra’s arm goes immediately around her shoulder, drawing her close. 

“So,” Josephine says, after a moment, “was that to your liking?”

(She is not entirely fishing for compliments, although she is honest with herself that she hopes to receive one. But mostly—they have not spoken about it in the space of time between Cassandra waking, and she would like to hear it in Cassandra’s own voice, that she was pleased, that she was satisfied.)

“Yes,” Cassandra says. “Very much.” She dusts toast crumbs from her lips and presses a kiss to the crown of Josephine’s head. “You were perfect. I do not know how to thank you.”

Josephine laughs. “You hardly need to thank me. It would be a gross understatement to say simply that I enjoyed myself too.” She did not climax at the moment, but she will carry the memory—of Cassandra, helpless and trusting and glorious as a goddess under her hands—with her, now, as a precious treasure. “You really don’t know how magnificent you are.”

Cassandra makes a noncommittal noise and shrugs. For a moment they are silent, the only sound the crackle of the flames and the sound of Cassandra finishing the last crisp crust of toast.

“Would you like to do it again some time?” Josephine asks, after a while. (She thinks she can still smell herself on Cassandra, and Cassandra on herself, and is dizzy with it.)

“Yes,” Cassandra says. “But not soon. It is not an urge I have often. But sometime… yes.”

“Good,” Josephine says, and says nothing more as they gaze at the fire, Cassandra warm and solid as all the world against her side. It may be that she will want to discuss the fantasy that came upon her, of binding Cassandra all over in complex knots, making her a work of art of rope and muscle and skin. It may be that she will want to discuss the fact that she might like to be bound herself, some time, that she might want the opportunity to melt into the safety of her lover’s hands.

But for now this is all they need, and she twines her hand through Cassandra’s where it rests on her shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the King James Bible, Matthew 6:21: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."


End file.
